Johan Santana leads NY Mets to 5-1 win over Atlanta Braves

John Bazemore/Associated PressJohn Santana threw seven shutout innings for his first career victory against the Atlanta Braves.

ATLANTA -- For all that has gone wrong this year, the Mets can be thankful for this: They still have Johan Santana on the mound every fifth game.

Santana tossed seven scoreless innings, reliever Brian Stokes got the Mets out of a bases-loaded jam in the eighth and their offense showed signs of life in a 5-1 victory over the Braves on Saturday at Turner Field.

Just the facts:

-- Santana allowed five hits and two walks while striking out five. After having the worst month of his starting pitching career in June, Santana has reeled off 15 consecutive scoreless innings, dating to July 5. Saturday marked his first career victory against the Braves.

-- The Mets broke their own 19-inning scoreless streak when Braves starter Kenshin Kawakami walked Jeremy Reed with the bases loaded in the sixth inning. Their offense erupted for three runs in the ninth, when Angel Pagan had an RBI triple, Luis Castillo drove in a run with a sacrifice bunt and Jeff Francoeur added to the lead with an RBI single.

-- The bullpen was shaky in the eighth, when Pedro Feliciano gave up a solo home run to Chipper Jones and Pat Misch gave up a single and a walk to load the bases with two outs. But after entering in relief of Misch, Stokes struck out Greg Norton to end the inning.

-- The Mets got a scare in the fifth inning when Atlanta's Matt Diaz slid hard into David Wright at third base. Diaz collided with Wright's right ankle, causing Wright to lean over in pain. Manager Jerry Manuel and trainer Ray Ramirez went out to examine Wright, but he stayed in the game.

The big picture:

-- With Santana starting and pitching the way he did, the Mets (43-47) desperately needed to win this game. A loss would have added to the already growing sense that the season is lost. The Mets won for only the sixth time in their last 19 games.

-- Fernando Nieve will start against Braves right-hander Javier Vazquez on Sunday as the Mets look to salvage a split of the four-game series.

From the clubhouse:

-- Santana: "I think we went through everything in today's game. It's good to see what we picked each other up. Hopefully we'll come back tomorrow with the same mentality. ... We still have a long way to go. We just have to get on a roll and hope the teams that are ahead of us go on a losing streak or something."

-- Wright said he rolled his ankle a little bit but was fine. Neither he nor Manuel thought it was a dirty play by Diaz, who was out on the throw from Santana to Wright on a bunt by Kawakami. "I thought it was a good slide," Manuel said. "He tried to make sure that he didn't complete the play to first base and he came right across the bag."

-- Wright: "We can't get too excited when we do things right, just like we can't get too upset when things aren't going right. We have to stay more even-keeled in the second half."